Greg From ‘Dharma And Greg’ Had A Two Year Relationship With A Fake Internet Girlfriend

I admit that while watching the video below, I initially felt sorry for Thomas Gibson, better known as Greg from Dharma and Greg (and he’s in one of those interchangeable CBS procedurals, too). I mean, here’s a lonely guy so isolated by his mid-level fame that he resorted to the anonymous confines of the Internet to find love, and love is what he found. Unfortunately, the woman that Thomas Gibson had been in an on-line relationship with for two years was fake. She was just some rando who used the photos of some porn star to lure Thomas Gibson into her honey trap. The catch, unfortunately, is that both Thomas Gibson and the fake girlfriend developed real feeling for each other over the Internet, at least until Gibson found out that he’d been Catfished. After that, the lawyers got involved, and poor, sad, lonely and duped Thomas Gibson had his handlers contact her and insist that she never contact him again.

My sympathy for Thomas Gibson abruptly ended, however, as soon as I found out that he is married and has kids. In fact, in the cell phone message below that Gibson sends his fake Internet girlfriend (who released the video to TMZ because, hey! Why not? MONEY!), he’s hanging out in the hot tub chatting up his fake lover while his kids are playing video games. GREAT PARENTING.

You’re wealthy, you’re decent looking, and you’re semi-famous: WHAT WOULD POSSESS YOU? And how does that conversation with Gibson’s wife go, anyway?

I know he has kids and it was a dick move being married and all, but he’s clearly lonely jin his marriage and so I do feel bad for him. Not necessarily for the video being released, but that he was sad and depressed enough to turn to an anonymous stranger to begin with. If his marriage survives, I hope they look into some real counseling.

I still have no idea how one goes about getting a fake internet girlfriend. I’ve met my share of girls on the internet, but I would never consider it a “relationship” and would also probably stop talking to her if we never met. How does a guy let himself get in a relationship for years (!!!) at a time with someone he hasn’t (and won’t ever) had sex with?

Well, one complicated sociological-psychological explanation focuses on the increasing emotional separation and isolation that we take on in a fast-paced individualistic society that both demands and encourages us to avoid interdependence, at the cost of meaningful connections. We naturally fear the pain of rejection, so we seek to minimize our vulnerability, and in this age of technology and mobility, we have more ability to cut our dependence on other people than ever. But this comes at the cost of a weakened sense of self-worth, because we, as social animals, partly build our self-image in relation to others. And the less we rely on others, the less they rely on us – in effect, we truly are of lower value to our friends. Modern communications tech allows us to attempt connection while minimizing our vulnerability, due to the physical separation and personal anonymity, and in our darkest, loneliest times, it seems the safest avenue for us to reach out. Yet at the same time, it’s also this same technology than cripples our ability to expand and reach out in more meaningful ways, so we often get trapped in the same, unhealthy, self-defeating patterns.

But the simplest explanation is probably, “He was really, really lonely.”